


Illusions of Fireflies

by Marta_Ayanami



Series: The Four Loves [5]
Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Edit: now oneshot in two parts, Gen, Oneshot, because I have to write Kasuga's side, yup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta_Ayanami/pseuds/Marta_Ayanami
Summary: She terrified him. He wished she dropped dead, right now: partly because she wished so. Which meant that for the first time in ages he was trying to be on the soul wavelength of somebody who wasn't one of his Lords, and he hated that.After all, if Ieyasu was to see it, he'd accuse Mitsunari of feeling pity, with that dumb smile of his, while calling it 'compassion' as if such a thing existed in this world!She terrified him. And no wonder. The last time he's looked into a mirror was when he was five years old.





	

**Illusions of Fireflies**

She terrified him. He's realised it fairly quickly, though it's been years since he had felt this emotion called _fear._

Her eyes frightened him, and so did her quickly dissipitating Light, which was growing dimmer and dimmer every second. To be honest, he's always been a bit offended upon seeing anybody born of Light if they weren't in any way connected to Lord Hideyoshi. Because how dare they?! At least Ieyasu - who apparently had been of Thunder first - was logical, because... because surely some of Lord Hideyoshi's Light had deigned to seep into him. None of the Lord's Light ever seeped into Mitsunari's Shadow - ah, no, not into Shadow, Shadows don't exist... None of the Lord's Light ever seeped into Mitsunari's Soul, but that was only natural. Something that holy, inside himself? The very thought, the very imagining of it happening was purely blasphemous.

( _No exorcism's worked on that demon, tell that Masatsugu to kill the demon brat already--!!)_

Her Light was quickly dissipitating. And no wonder: after all, she had died. Just by looking at her, it was fairly obvious. Still, he's seen many dead people, and some of them pretending that they weren't dead yet and walking around in a daze like this woman. So... why would she frighten him? He had to know. There was something deeply unsettling - for a moment, Mitsunari felt as if he's accidently looked into a mirror surface for the first time in fourteen years.

So he asked, "Why are you dead? And why's your Light dying?"

She looked into his eyes with her empty eyes: no, he couldn't call them empty. Emptiness always had suggestion of the possibility of ever being filled again, after all. Her gaze was too blank for that.

"It's a dream, it's a dream, it's a dream, it's a dream!"

What was first a barely audible mutter... with this litany continuing (it was a litany, Mitsunari had heard many litanies and so he'd recognise one immediately) it slowly turned into a still rather quiet scream.

"No. I'm not in your dream," he said bluntly, desiring to know what she, whatever her name was, she was God of War's, wasn't she? What she was babbling about so incomprehensively, trying his patience so much that if he didn't feel strange coldness of terror in his Heart, he'd just kill her now for irritating his ears and mind.

"It's a dream, it's a dream... Kenshin-sama!!"

Ah.

So now he knew. There was no doubt.

Oddly, he wasn't sure what to do with that knowledge. Something was rising deep inside him, and he wasn't sure what, himself, before he heard himself shouting,

"Then why in the seven hells are you alive?! You should be dead, you should have died protecting your Lord!! What are you... this is wrong!!"

Suddenly, there seemed to be a flicker of _something_ in her blank gaze, as she replied, straight into his Shadow (that didn't exist, he reminded himself): Y  OU'RE RIG  HT. AN  D SO, THIS IS A DREAM. BECA   U  SE I   F I  T WA  SN'T, I'D HA VE D IED BE   FO    RE KENSHIN   -    SAMA.

Still feeling a grip of sudden inexplicable terror on his very soul, but also strangely flustered somehow, Mitsunari rather quietly offered, "Mhm, maybe a nightmare, i don't know. I'll know if I hear of his death. But if you ever wake up and it's all true... come to me and I can cut your head off. It won't hurt."

With his terror suddenly spiking even higher, he realised _~~**why**~~ t_his Kenshin's vassal was like a mirror surface, and ~~**_why_**~~ she was so frightening. Because - she was dead, and she was not, and she could never rest, had not even slightest right to rest, or to despair, or to cry - because...

Yes. If he was to - If he ever lost Lord Hideyoshi, would he be just like her?

He didn't want an answer to that question. He'd rather die over and over again, forever, left to die in pool of his own blood, or ripped to shreds, or burned, or, dammit, even if it was what would have happened ~~**_back then,_**~~ than ever learn it.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Fireflies are, for probably obvious reasons, very much tied to Darkness Elementals in all my SB verses. Headcanonly, I mean, and so also in fanfics.
> 
> (Conversely, and also my headcanon again, so expect this also in my fics, white flowers are tied to Light Elementals in these verses.)
> 
> Title from JE's ending song, 'Polaris', but many of my titles are, so that alone won't merit any author's notes. XD


End file.
